BMW and Partners Found GENIVI Open Source Platform

In a keynote at the Open Source Forum of CeBIT 2009, Graham Smethurst, general manager of infotainment and communication systems at BMW, will present a new Open Source development platform for the auto industry.

Pidgin

Pidgin (formerly named Gaim) is a chat program which lets you log in to accounts on multiple chat networks simultaneously. This means that you can be chatting with friends on MSN, talking to a friend on Google Talk, and sitting in a Yahoo chat room all at the same time. Pidgin runs on Windows, Linux, and other UNIX operating systems.

Pidgin is compatible with the following chat networks out of the box: AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber/XMPP, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, QQ, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, MySpaceIM, and Zephyr. It can support many more with plugins.

Pidgin supports many features of these chat networks, such as file transfers, away messages, buddy icons, custom smilies, and typing notifications. Numerous plugins also extend Pidgin's functionality above and beyond the standard features. Pidgin integrates with the system tray on Windows, GNOME2, and KDE 3.1.

Contacts (usually known as "Buddies") are added by the "Buddy List" window or by the IM window. As a client that supports IRC and other chat programs, it can also add different IRC channels and IM Chats. Contacts with multiple protocols can be grouped into one single contact instead of managing multiple protocols and contacts can be given aliases as well or placed into groups.

To reach users as they log on or a status change occurs (such as moving from "Away" to "Available"), Pidgin supports on-action automated scripts called Buddy Pounces to automatically reach the user in customizable ways.

Naming dispute

In response to pressure from AOL, the program was renamed to the acronymous-but-lowercase gaim. As AOL Instant Messenger gained popularity, AOL trademarked its acronym, "AIM", leading to a lengthy legal struggle with the program's creators, who kept the matter largely secret.

On April 6, 2007, the project development team announced the results of their settlement with AOL, which included a series of name changes: Gaim became Pidgin, libgaim became libpurple, and gaim-text became finch. The name Pidgin was chosen in reference to the term "pidgin", which describes communication between people who do not share a common language. It also harks back to its original name, as the pigeon bird is a popular game bird and messenger. The name "purple" refers to "prpl", the internal libgaim name for an IM protocol plugin.